Rotorua's thermal parks are spectacular and they are busy. Okoroire is the opposite proposition: a small set of natural hot pools tucked into the bush behind a country hotel, halfway between Tirau and Matamata, that most visitors to the North Island have never heard of.
It is not slick. That is entirely the point.
What is actually there
The springs sit below the Okoroire Hot Springs Hotel, down a short path through the trees towards the Waihou River. The pools are stone lined and fed directly by the thermal source, so the temperature varies naturally rather than being dialled in.
The hotel itself dates from 1889 and has the bones to prove it: high ceilings, a proper public bar, a dining room and a golf course out the back that is one of the older courses in the country. It is a country pub with a hot spring attached rather than a spa resort.
- Natural thermal pools fed directly from the source
- A bush setting above the Waihou River
- The 1889 heritage hotel for a meal or a drink after
- A historic golf course on the property
What it is like to soak there
The water carries a mineral smell, mildly sulphurous, which is what tells you it is the real thing rather than a heated swimming pool. The pools are small, so on a busy afternoon you will be sharing with a handful of other people and on a weekday morning you may have one to yourself.
Half an hour to forty minutes is about right. Thermal water is more tiring than it feels, and the walk back up to the hotel is more pleasant when you have not overdone it.
Practical notes
- Bring a towel, and jandals for the path down
- Check current opening hours and pool access with the hotel before you drive out
- Take your togs, this is not a private pool arrangement
- The mineral water can mark light coloured or delicate swimwear
- There is limited phone reception, which is not the worst thing
Combining it with the rest of the day
Okoroire is best used as an ending. It sits within half an hour of the Hobbiton Movie Set and about twenty minutes from the Blue Spring at Putaruru, which makes it the natural last stop after a day on your feet.
Both of our tours that come this way finish here for exactly that reason. The full day Hobbiton tour includes the movie set, the hot springs soak and a meal at the heritage hotel, and the half day Blue Spring tour takes in Sanctuary Mountain and Putaruru before finishing in the pools.
- Hobbiton Movie Set, about half an hour away at Matamata
- Te Waihou Blue Spring, roughly twenty minutes
- Tirau, ten minutes, for the cafes and the corrugated iron sculptures
- Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari, about forty minutes west
